17 October 2008 New Chairman for ORT South Africa ORT South Africa has paid tribute to Darrel Krowitz, who has moved to London after serving the maximum two terms as Chairman permitted by the organisation’s constitution. Darrel came into the organisation with a businesslike approach which has certainly stood us in good stead, said ORT South Africas National Director, Michael Sieff. He is a visionary with fantastic strategic insight and knew what needed to be done to run ORT South Africa efficiently and effectively. As a result, ORT South Africa delivers more programmes to the Jewish and general communities but in a highly professional way and to greater public acclaim. Over the four years of Mr Krowitzs chairmanship, ORT South Africa has grown, implementing educational projects in Alexander, Soweto and Ivory Park as well as Jewish day schools. In addition it has partnered with another organisation to provide skills training for accounting graduates and has continued community development programmes in Dikhatole, Limpopo and Namibia. Mr Krowitz was a trustee of ORT JET, which has been providing volunteer mentors to help Jewish businesspeople improve their companys performance since 2005. The programme has proven highly successful, helping 80 per cent of the 110 businesses which have completed it to fulfil their objectives. The model has been adopted to great effect by Australian ORT. Darrel could see straight away ORT JETs potential to have a major impact on getting our name out in the public domain and attract new supporters, Mr Sieff said. Before Darrels term in office ORT was relatively unknown in the Jewish community. Now were out there in the public eye. We have established ourselves in the Jewish and broader communities as a real organisation which delivers the goods. Taking the chairmanship from Mr Krowitz, who has taken up a position in London managing an international property portfolio, is Irwin Lipworth, a chartered accountant. Irwin has been Treasurer of ORT South Africa for four years so he has an intricate knowledge of our operations and finances, Mr Sieff said. And as director of a large accountancy firm he will reaffirm the businesslike approach which ORT South Africa adopted under Darrel.